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3 Tips To Help You Teach Your Kids To Stay Away From Drugs

28 June 2016 by Timmothy Miles

Treating a drug addiction is never easy, and it often becomes a lifelong journey for most addicts. This is why it is always better to prevent a drug addiction from happening instead of treating it after it is already occurring. If one of your goals as a parent is to help your kids stay away from drugs, you may want to follow these three tips. While there is no fool-proof method, the more you do to try to prevent this, the better your chances might be.

Educate them

Teaching your kids about drugs is a great way to begin helping them battle this fight in life. Throughout life, your kids will most likely have opportunities to try all kinds of drugs. If you can emphasize several important things to them, they might be more likely to say no. Here are some of the things to emphasize:

• How addictive they are
• How much they cost
• The effects they have on the body and brain
• The ways they can ruin a person's life

Pounding these into your child's brain may at least cause your child to stop and think before he or she tries drugs at any given point. It's also important to teach your kids how their friends can play a big role in this. If they choose friends that do drugs, they may have a higher chance of trying them too.

Test them periodically

In today's world, it is very easy to drug test your children. You can go to almost any pharmacy and purchase at-home drug kits. If you really want to keep your kids away from drugs, start telling them when they are young that you will be randomly drug testing them and then do it. You can start the drug tests before you think they are old enough to begin experimenting, and you can continue using these for as long as you need to.

Set and enforce rules and consequences

Setting up rules and consequences in your household might not be your favorite task, but it is one that is very important. When kids know the rules and understand fully that their parents will enforce consequences, they are often more likely to avoid breaking the rules. This is a principle that can also come in handy as you try to help them steer clear of drugs. The rules you have in place should help protect your kids and guide them, and these rules will most likely help them stay out of situations where drugs might be present. If you catch them breaking a rule, punish them. If your child's drug test shows positive, make sure you have severe consequences in place and follow them. This could prevent your child from doing the same thing again.

If you want your kids to be successful and happy when they grow up, you must find ways to encourage them to stay away from drugs. To learn more about this, contact a substance abuse center today. 

For online substance abuse assessment, contact a company such as Still Waters Recovery & Wellness.

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